VS2010 How to include files in project, to copy them to build output directory automatically during build or publish

Task is to form Visual Studio 2010 project so, that during any build or publish some foo.exe utility should be copied to output (bin) directory.

Early I have made PostBuildEvent task in .csproj (MSBuild-file):

<PropertyGroup>
  <PostBuildEvent>
    Copy "$(SolutionDir)Tools\foo.exe" "$(ProjectDir)$(OutDir)foo.exe"
  </PostBuildEvent>
</PropertyGroup>

But this is not universal. During publishing (Visual Studio 2010) foo.exe appears in bin directory, but is not copied to output publish directory. Maybe I do everything completely wrong and there is standard mechanism to include files in projects to be later, during build or publish, copied to bin?

There is and it is not dependent on post build events.

Add the file to your project, then in the file properties select under "Copy to Output Directory" either "Copy Always" or "Copy if Newer".

See MSDN.

I only have the need to push files during a build, so I just added a Post-build Event Command Line entry like this:

Copy /Y "$(SolutionDir)Third Party\SomeLibrary\*" "$(TargetDir)"

You can set this by right-clicking your Project in the Solution Explorer, then Properties > Build Events

In Solution Explorer, please select files you want to copied to output directory and assign two properties:

• Build action = Content
• Copy to Output Directory = Copy Always

This will do the trick.

1. Add the file to your project.
2. Go to the Properties of that file.
3. Set "Build Action" to Embedded Resource.
4. Set "Copy to Output Directory" to Copy Always.

In my case, setting Copy to Output Directory to Copy Always and Build did not do the trick, while Rebuild did.

Hope this helps someone!

Try adding a reference to the missing dll's from your service/web project directly. Adding the references to a different project didn't work for me.

I only had to do this when publishing my web app because it wasn't copying all the required dll's.

Just so my fellow neuronically impaired comrades might chance upon it here, I had assumed that, for web projects, if the linked file was an external .config file that the "output directory" would be the same directory that web.config lives in, i.e. your web project's root. In retrospect, it is entirely unsurprising that it copies the linked file into the root/bin folder.

So, if it's an appSettings include file, your web.config's open tag would be

<appSettings file=".\bin\includedAppSettingsFile.config">

Duh.

There is another way that can copy items that are "outside" the Solution (which also makes it technically possible to copy Solution Items as well).

In Solution Explorer, right-click in your project and choose "Add... Existing Item". Locate the file in question (it can by any type, not just code), and next to the "Add" button, click the drop-down arrow and select "Add As Link".

In Solution Explorer, select the item that was just added to your project and change the Copy to Output Directory property to Copy if newer or Copy always, as appropriate.